When the average person thinks "evil," he thinks of a cruelly-featured, sneering, bestial man wickedly twirling his mustache as he draws perverse delight from inflicting misery on his fellow human beings.

People who fit the almost cartoonish definition we've grown accustomed to viewing as evil, certainly do exist -- and we hear about those dictators, serial killers, hit men, & psychopaths on the nightly news.

But, it's a mistake to believe that those are the only people who do evil or that only activities that rise to the level of murder, rape, or armed robbery are sins. The worst of the worst may deserve especially strong condemnation, but small cruelties committed by unthinking people -- who view themselves as good and just, despite their sometimes malicious actions -- have done more than most people realize to spread evil, degrade civilization, and drag our culture into the sewers.

That's the everyday reality we live with, especially in prosperous, civilized nations like America. For the average person, on a typical day, the evil that comes into his life isn't from some modern day Snidely Whiplash; it's from other ordinary people: his co-workers and random folks he passes on the street during his everyday life.

Yes, "good people" can and often do perform evil acts that should be incompatible with their view of themselves as decent human beings. Unfortunately, it's our nature to lapse into malevolent behavior sometimes and if we're not paying attention, we can sometimes engage in it for quite a while without even truly realizing how far we've drifted from our values.